Nightmare
by TheWeatherOutside
Summary: He woke up crying. He was sure he was awake, sure he was in his bed because that's where he had last been, right? He had gone to bed and had a nightmare. That's all it was. It wasn't real. (Whumptober Alternate Prompt 10 - Nightmare)
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings for nightmares, sleep paralysis & night terrors, blood & gore, hallucinations, and psychological torture.**

* * *

Gordon was in a dark place.

He didn't know where he was. He couldn't see in the pitch blackness.

He began to walk. He didn't know why, other than the fact that if he moved, he might find out where he was.

After walking for a while, unsure of how much time had passed, he saw a light in the distance. His steps began to quicken with the possibility of finding something in this seemingly endless abyss.

The light grew bigger the further he went, and then suddenly the darkness was gone, and light filled the whole area around him.

He could finally see where he was. It was a wide, flat area, almost like a desert. The ground beneath his feet was cracked and dry, like there hadn't been a drop of rain in years.

He looked around, but there still appeared to be nothing about. Just flat, cracked ground that stretched on until it curved over the horizon.

He kept on moving with the hope that he would finally come across something.

The sun was beaming down on him. He was sweating, but the sun didn't burn his skin. He almost missed the darkness where it was cold and he felt nothing.

However, after what felt like walking for hours, he finally saw something in the distance. It seemed to appear out of nowhere, some ruins of a long-forgotten, destroyed building.

The ruins were made of stone. They were white, which made the burst of colour in the centre of the ruins stand out.

As he got closer, he could see what the source of the colour was, and his stomach dropped.

It was blood, and a lot of it at that.

His breath began to quicken as his mind raced with possibilities of where it could have come from. Although, he didn't need to wonder for long.

His gaze traced the bloodied path through the ruins until he reached the source of it all.

His heart was in his throat and he couldn't breathe.

He dropped to his knees next to the closest figure.

"Scott…" Gordon gasped out between his quick breaths.

His brother was a bloody mess. He was in his IR suit, but Gordon couldn't even see the blue past all the red. His limbs were splayed about, and Gordon couldn't even be sure they were all still attached to his body.

He couldn't look at it anymore, so he crawled away to next bodies on the floor.

They were in no better condition. Gordon wouldn't even have been able to identify who they were if it weren't for the specks of bright, red hair beneath the thick soot and matted blood, or the green sash with charred edges that still threatened to burn.

He wanted to get away from it all, and so he pushed himself back across the ground, but he bumped into something behind him. He was too scared to look, but for some reason he couldn't control his body as it twisted and turned to face the mangled body of his little brother.

"Alan-" He could feel bile rise in his throat, but he couldn't get himself to throw up. Couldn't get himself to turn away from the torn flesh and appendages that had been ripped in half.

It felt like hours had passed where he was forced to stare at his brothers. He sobbed as he uncontrollably faced each one in turn and was made to take in each wound, each burn, each body part that was missing.

He didn't know what had ended it, what had broken the spell and let him finally move away from it all, but eventually the edges of his vision started to fade to black and the scene before him faded away.

* * *

He woke up crying. He was sure he was awake, sure he was in his bed because that's where he had last been, right? He had gone to bed and had a nightmare. That's all it was. It wasn't real.

But he couldn't be awake, because he couldn't move. All of his limbs felt extremely heavy, too heavy for him to lift. He couldn't breathe but he didn't know why.

It took every ounce of strength and concentration to open his eyes. It took him a while, but eventually his eyelids slipped open.

Although, as soon as he opened them, he wished he hadn't.

There was a dark figure sitting on his chest. They were staring down at him through icy, blue eyes and were weighing down on his lungs.

He was sure that this was just night terrors, just sleep paralysis or something. He'd heard tales of this, of waking up to a figure perched on your rib cage, slowing pushing the air out of you.

The shadows in the room beyond the figure danced around him. Some crept slowly towards him, and he wanted to edge away from them, but he still couldn't _move_.

He just had to wait this out. Soon the figure would disappear, and the shadows would stop moving and he'd be left alone in his room. He could go find his brothers and make sure they were alright and cry into their shoulders without a care because he was _scared_.

Only, the figure never vanished. It only got more detailed the more it sat there and slowly came to life.

He could make out more of its features now. It looked like a woman. She had hair that fell in front of her piercing eyes and a cruel smile soon came into view.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realised that the woman was wearing purple. It sparked a memory in him, and that memory was filled with panic and pain and confusion.

Suddenly, a name flashed through his mind, and he realised he knew who this was.

"Havoc…" He somehow managed to move his mouth, and he realised that his body was starting to wake up.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead." She smirked from her perch on top of Gordon. "Have a nice sleep?"

Gordon didn't reply. Instead he focused on moving his arms, but he didn't get far before they met resistance. He sluggishly turned his head and found that his wrists were tied down with metal chains.

"Wha-" His mouth felt like it was filled with cotton balls and he ran his tongue around it to try and bring some moisture back.

"Wondering what this is?" She held up a syringe that was filled with some sort of weirdly coloured liquid. "Why don't I show you some more."

She then grabbed hold of one of Gordon's arms. Gordon tried to struggle away, but he still felt weak and devoid of any strength.

A pain pierced his arm as the needle was inserted, and then the liquid was injected.

Things started to grow hazy again, but he managed to catch the next words Havoc uttered.

"You're not going anywhere. So, I suggest you get comfortable."

Her weight finally left his chest and he could breathe properly again. She walked off into the shadows of the room and he began to cry.

His face was wet with tears and his throat hurt. He didn't want to stay here anymore. He wanted to leave, he needed to find his brothers and make sure they were alright.

He called after Havoc, but she didn't reappear. Instead, the shadows began to dance and creep again and exhaustion pulled at him. He resisted it for as long as he could, but it just dragged him further until he was consumed. Back in a dark abyss that sucked away all life and anything he cared about.

His own little hell.


	2. Chapter 2

_Due to popular request, here's a second chapter for this fic! Now with a much happier ending!_

* * *

The building was quiet, making their footsteps echo around them. The whole place seemed abandoned, which shouldn't be right. This was where they traced him to be.

"This is the correct place, right?" Alan was the first to break their silence, voicing just what they had all been thinking.

"I thought so." Virgil could see the way Scott's brow was furrowed as he took in the apparently abandoned building around them. "Kayo, are you sure this is the right place?"

"Positive, Scott." Kayo's voice chimed through the comms from where she was searching another part of the building. "This is definitely where his emergency beacon was coming from. Keep looking, he has to be around here somewhere."

"What if they moved him?" Alan sounded so lost, so Virgil stopped from where he was walking down the corridor, to lay a comforting hand on his little brother's shoulder.

"We will find him." He smiled as reassuringly as he could. He didn't know if he was convincing himself, let alone Alan, but they still needed hope.

Alan offered him a shaky nod in return, and they continued on without another word.

They searched the building for a while, but still couldn't find anyone or anything. Virgil felt himself start to lose hope, when he noticed something out of the ordinary.

"Hey, Scott? Come looked at this," Virgil called to his brother as he crouched down on the ground.

"What is it?" Scott asked as he came to stand next to Virgil. He looked down in confusion when Virgil ran his finger along the floor.

"No dust." Virgil lifted the clean tip of his glove up to show Scott. "Bit weird, seeing as the rest of this place is caked in it."

Virgil could see the moment doubt left Scott's face and hope replaced it.

"Let's keep on looking. He's around here somewhere."

They hurried down the corridor, fuelled by hopefulness, opening every door they came across and searching every room for a sign of their lost brother.

There was one last door at the end of the corridor, and when Virgil reached for the handle, he found that it was locked.

"It's locked," he informed his brothers as he took a step back from the door. It was the only locked door they'd come across so far, so it must be where their brother was.

He took his stance next to the door, and with all his strength he kicked the door. The door flew open, the lock snapping under the force.

The room was dark. The rest of the building was too, but in there it was exceptionally so. Virgil adjusted the torch on his shoulder and shone it around the room.

The light caught movement on the floor, and Virgil directed the light over to that spot on the ground.

And that was when he found him.

Gordon was in the middle of the room on the ground. Virgil hurried over to his side and saw that he must have been asleep as his eyes were closed and he didn't react to Virgil approaching.

He must've been deep in some dream, or even a nightmare, as his eyes were moving rapidly behind his eyelids and he was writhing around where he laid on the ground.

However, his movements were restricted by the chains that were attached to his wrists and ankles, and kept them tied to the floor. Virgil saw Scott move to work on getting them off Gordon, so Virgil worked on getting Gordon to wake up.

"Gordon?" Virgil gently jostled Gordon's shoulder.

A small whimper escaped past his lips, which was the indicator that this was in fact a nightmare that he was having.

"Gordon." Virgil tried to be slightly firmer as his brother still didn't give any indication to waking up yet. "Hey, wake up."

He shook his shoulder a little more, and then Gordon's movements slowly stilled.

Gordon's breathing had been quick, but now it slowed down, and as it did so, his eyes fluttered open.

Gordon looked up at him with tired eyes and blinked blearily at him.

"Hey, Gordo? You awake now?" Virgil smiled down at him.

Gordon's eyes met Virgil's and as they did so, something seemed to click. He only just realised Virgil was there, hovering above him, and his once tired eyes widened in panic and he started to thrash out again like he had been doing when he had been asleep.

Just at that moment, Scott managed to released one of Gordon's hands from the chains.

Gordon immediately swung his free arm out and slapped Virgil across the face. There wasn't much strength behind it, Gordon's movements still sluggish, but the shock of it sent Virgil off of the balls of his feet and onto his backside.

Virgil rubbed his cheek as he sat back onto his knees. The stinging quickly subsided and so he turned his attention back to his brother.

With Gordon's free hand, he was trying to rip the metal chain from his other wrist.

"Gordon?" Virgil tried again, hoping that his brother would recognise his voice.

"No, no, no. Just leave me alone." Gordon didn't turn back to him and continued to pull at the chains.

"Gordon, it's just us. We're not going to hurt you." Scott tried to get through to him, but it was still to no avail.

"Just make it stop-" He broke off with a whimper and started to sob, but still wouldn't leave the chain alone.

Virgil noticed that where he was clawing at the restraint, he was beginning to scratch his skin. To prevent his brother from hurting himself any further, Virgil gently gripped the free wrist so he couldn't break free and hit him again.

"Gordo, it's Virgil. And Scott and Alan. We're here to help you, we're not going to hurt you."

Gordon was looking at him properly now, his pupils dilated and his eyes wide. His breathing was heavy and rapid, and he frantically glanced at each brother.

When his eyes settled back on Virgil, he watched him for a long moment before his frantic look softened slightly.

"Virg? Is that really you?" His voice sounded so small and lost, and Virgil's heart clenched.

"Yeah, yeah, it's me. I'm here." He gave Gordon a watery smile.

Abruptly, Gordon was sitting up, as much as his remaining restraints would allow him, and was clinging onto Virgil tightly. Virgil could both feel and hear him crying into his shoulder. Virgil instinctively wrapped both his arms around his little brother and held him close, one of his hands rubbing soothing circles into his back.

As Gordon clung to him, Virgil looked up at his other brothers in the room, and silently asked what the hell had happened here to break him like this.

* * *

"The blood test has come back," Brains said as he picked up the device that held the results. "There were traces of a number of drugs still in his system, including hallucinogens."

"You reckon that's what caused the nightmares?" Virgil asked as he leant against one of the workbenches that were in Brains' lab. He crossed his arms as his brow furrowed.

"Precisely. It seems that Gordon was injected with this concoction of drugs and they caused him to have nightmares whilst he slept, and hallucinate his surroundings whilst he was awake. It's most likely why he didn't recognise you when he woke up."

Virgil frowned at the memory of when they'd found their brother. Gordon had been very reserved and quiet since then. In fact, the only thing Virgil recalled him saying was that it was the Chaos Crew that took him, which the rest of them already suspected, although now it was confirmed. Other than that, Gordon hadn't said anything else.

On their way back in Thunderbird 2, Virgil had checked him over for any other injuries, and had thankfully found none, but also any question Virgil asked him, Gordon only gave him a nod or shake of the head in return. No words. Nothing about what had actually happened to him.

Virgil had thought that maybe he was tired or in shock, that maybe he would open up soon, but it had been two days since they got home and Virgil still hadn't heard a word from his brother. He had barely even seen him.

* * *

His eyes traced along the thin line where the sea and sky met on the horizon. The sun was setting. It tinged the sea a beautiful orange as the water caught the light.

The water was calm today. He could see no waves in the distance. Just a flat surface with the occasional rocky outcrop that broke through.

Water lapped at the beach and threatened to reach his toes, but he had pulled them in close to his body to tuck them out of the way. The sound of the water hitting the rocky edges of the island were almost soothing enough to put him to sleep, and he rested his head on top of his knees and listened to the calming sounds.

A twig snapped behind him and broke him out of his trance. He whipped his head around, and he found his oldest brother standing behind him, his hands raised.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to startle you," Scott said softly. It was how everyone had been speaking to him since he got back home. Like he was going to break. He couldn't exactly blame them.

Gordon didn't say anything, he just turned back towards the sea, now that he knew it was just Scott. He could feel Scott's eyes on the back of his head as he judged whether or not it was safe to approach Gordon further.

"You can sit down if you want to." Gordon's eyes stayed on the water as he broke the silence. He could feel the shock radiating off of Scott at the fact that Gordon said something. Gordon was sort of shocked at himself. He could picture the raised brow of his brother behind him, and any other time he would have laughed at the image.

A second later, Scott sat down on the sand next to Gordon, a couple of feet of distance between them. Gordon knew Scott wanted to be closer, to be able to wrap his arm around his little brother, and Gordon wanted that too. But just not yet.

"Gordon-"

"Stop." Gordon cut him off, because he knew exactly what he was going to say. "I know you want to know what happened, but the reason I haven't said anything is because I _don't know_ what happened. I don't remember."

That was only partially a lie. He thought back on what he'd experienced in that room. He wasn't sure what was real and what was a dream, he didn't even know for sure if Havoc was actually there, or if that was another dream he was trapped in. He couldn't even be sure that this was all real right now.

"Brains said that you were drugged," Scott whispered, like he didn't want to say it. Like not saying it would make it not true. "Do you remember that?"

Gordon nodded. At least he knew _that_ was real.

They were quiet for a long moment, before Scott spoke again.

"When we found you, it looked like you were having a nightmare. What was that about?"

Gordon pulled his knees closer to his chest as images flashed in front of his eyes. Images of blood and gore and _death_.

"Gordon?" He flinched as a hand touched his shoulder, which was removed much faster than it appeared.

"Sorry." Scott really did sound bad about that.

"No, it's fine. It's not your fault." He took a deep breath as he tried to still his beating-too-fast heart. His eyes were closed, and when he felt himself start to calm down, he opened them and faced his brother.

Scott was watching him with concern, and Gordon knew he deserved to know more or the endless possibilities of what happened to Gordon would eat him alive.

"It was about you guys," Gordon said quietly, his voice feeling like it was gone.

"What?"

"That nightmare, it was about you guys. You, Virg, John, Alan. They all were about you." Gordon wanted to stop there, to let that sink in, but now he had started, he couldn't stop. "I saw you all die. Over and over, in different ways. It was awful. I couldn't do anything but be forced to watch every time."

He felt tears spring in his eyes and he turned to look away from Scott again, before he started to see his brother's face covered in blood and his head decapitated from his body again.

Scott was quiet for a very long moment, but Gordon was neither surprised nor minded. It allowed him another moment to get his breath back.

When Scott did eventually speak, it was accompanied by a finger on Gordon's chin as he coaxed his little brother to face him. This time Gordon didn't flinch away, now needing the contact more than ever.

"Gordon, look at me."

Gordon did as he was told.

"Those were just dreams, they weren't real. I know they felt like it at the time, and they probably still do now, but all of us are fine, alright?"

Gordon gave him the smallest of nods as Scott thumbed a tear away from his cheek.

"When was the last time you slept?"

Gordon shrugged. He honestly couldn't remember, everything made him feel like he was sleepwalking.

"Gordon." Scott sounded like he was trying to be reprimanding, but Gordon knew he was just concerned.

"I just…can't go back there." Whether that be the world of his dreams or that cold, dark room with the dancing shadows, he didn't know.

"Do you think that maybe Virgil could find something to give you-"

"No!" Gordon panicked at the thought of taking some sort of _more_ sleeping medication that would trap him in his dreams.

Scott sat back slightly, probably shocked at Gordon's outburst, so Gordon tried to calm down again.

"I'll fall asleep eventually. I just…need time to forget."

"You're not going to forget so easily. You need to sleep, Gordon."

"I know, but I'm hoping by them I'll be too tired that I won't have energy to dream."

Gordon knew Scott was going to protest that, so Gordon looked away before he could. He rested his head against his knees and watched as the final rays of sunlight started to slip over the horizon.

What Scott said next surprised him. "Alright. But whilst you wait for that, I'm going to wait with you until that happens, if that's okay?"

Gordon didn't protest, not even when Scott shuffled closer and wrapped an arm around Gordon's shoulders and faced the rest of the sunset with him.

Gordon knew what his brother was doing, as a second later a yawn escaped him. He couldn't find it in him to mind, though. He even smiled as he rested his head on Scott's shoulder.

He felt as Scott started to rub his arm, and he looked up at his big brother as much as he could from his position.

"Thanks, Scott."

He could just about see Scott smile down at him, before his comforting rubs continued and they both turned away again. Towards the settled waves and water that was now a dark blue as the light almost disappeared. They stayed like that until the sky became black and the stars filled their view where a sunset once was.

Gordon couldn't remember what had ended the moment, whether they got up to head back indoors or whether he finally fell asleep, he didn't know, but either way he didn't mind, because he knew that whatever happened he was safe, and so would be his brothers.


End file.
